


99 Problems

by Spoon888



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Androgyny, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Implied Relationships, Megatron's Sensory Crown, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Sub Megatron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:08:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25447357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spoon888/pseuds/Spoon888
Summary: Megatron wants to know how 'Peace Time' turned into 'Ruin Megatron's Life Time' and how many shanix Starscream is paying Elita One to orchestrate the planet-wide campaign against his happiness.
Relationships: Elita One/Megatron
Comments: 36
Kudos: 145





	99 Problems

Megatron no longer wore a fusion canon in his day-to-day life (and nor would he _any_ day if Prowl had it his way) so he was unable to utilise mass weapons of destruction to enhance the shock of his appropriately dramatic entry into Optimus Prime's ridiculously homely little out-of-hours office.

Seeing as peace or no peace there was no way in _Pit_ he was going to knock and wait politely, he decided to boot the door in with his pede. 

Unfortunately, between now and the last time he had been sufficiently annoyed enough to violently enter the Prime's office, someone had seen fit to reinforce it with blast-proof hinges and durasteel. Megatron's toe-pedes took the brunt of the damage and he bellowed the crude Vosian curse he had learnt the day Starscream's wing had gotten caught in the _Nemesis's_ airlock seal at the top of his vocaliser. 

Having heard his roar, someone on the other side was thoughtful enough to allow him entry. 

Megatron hobbled inside, heavily favouring his left, each step prompting a wince from him. To make matters worse he then forgot his original complaint completely when he looked up and in the place of Prime's concerned frown found himself looking into the displeased sneer of his _once_ Second-In-Command but _eternal_ pain-in-the-aft, Starscream.

"We should have known," Starscream began darkly, "What did you do to the door? Head-butt it?" 

Megatron was still struggling through his surprise at seeing Starscream here, in Prime's warm, welcoming office space, and not where he should have been (the depths of the Pit) that he couldn't come up with a quick enough response before the seeker was turning back to Prime.

"See, I told you at the last summit he's not ready to be reintroduced into society! He can't open a _door_ civilly-"

Optimus's blue optics crinkled at the edges, a sign he was smiling, despite the clear tension in the room. "Hello, Megatron-"

Megatron opened his mouth, but Starscream wasn't finished. 

"Do you have any idea how much it cost to fix that door last time you kicked it in?" Starscream demanded, revealing himself as the fiend who had had it reinforced. "Have you resorted to attacking the furnishings now that you don't have living victims at your disposal?! Seven times a week the taxpayers pay for you see Rung and you're still-"

"Starscream," Optimus tried to stop where this was going. 

"-throwing tantrums like a toddler?!" 

Megatron knew he hadn't originally been angry at Starscream, but the original target of his ire had been completely forgotten now. 

"You're one to talk!" He bellowed thunderously. 

"He used to do this on the Nemesis," Starscream whirled around with ring of air across his wings to face Optimus, pointing back at Megatron. "When things didn't go his way, he'd start trashing furniture. And things _never_ went his way; there was never anywhere to sit-!"

"What are you doing in here?!" Megatron demanded furiously, realising that this was one of his worst reoccurring nightmares - Starscream in the same room as Optimus, the both of them swapping stories, spilling his secrets. "Plotting against me again I see?! I was acquitted-!"

"I realise this is a concept foreign to you, Megatron," Starscream's wings were shaking at the tips with anger. "But not _everything_ is about _you_." 

"Impossible!" Megatron snapped before thinking. 

The entire embarrassing debacle then became impossibly more mortifying when a forth mecha -drawn by the screaming commotion- stepped over the open doorway and into the room. 

Bright pink. The colour of Unicron's pit and death itself. Megatron saw red - his tact-net bombarding him with dozens of warnings to make a tactical retreat and gather what remained of his dignity while it still existed. Elita One looked between the mechs before her, and smirked with something like fondness. 

"Megatron," she drawled, propping a large, armoured shoulder against the doorway. "Yes, I thought I heard you shrieking." 

" _That's_ the one who shrieks," Megatron jabbed a finger at Starscream. 

"This is intolerable!" Starscream piped up again. "Can I not have a one hour are meeting with Optimus without this planet's resident war-mongers bursting in and interrupting?!" 

Elita's smirk lost it's amused edge at Starscream's comparison of her and Megatron. Her optics fell on him with frightening focus.

Completely forgetting it was his former commander he had initially been angry with, Starscream edged behind Megatron. 

Optimus stood up from his desk, covered in smiling holograms of him and his many, many friends, and intervened before it got ugly. 'Elita, Megatron, if this is about the unified military proposal and nominations for Supreme General-"

Megatron suddenly remembered what had brought him to Prime's office to try and kick down the door and injure his foot in the first place. He whirled on Elita, his _true_ enemy, his optics alight, "A position _I_ was promised in peace talks, you mean?!" He thundered. "And yet today I was to learn the 'fair' and 'just' Prime planned on gifting the position to his intended!" 

Elita One snorted, "His _what_?"

Optimus began shaking his head. "No decisions have been made-"

"She's not his intended!" Starscream's voice was the loudest, and therefore attracted the most attention. All three of them looked at him in surprise. Starscream's cheeks warmed. "Well she isn't." 

Optimus cleared his vocaliser, "There will be a vote-"

"Which will be rigged, no doubt." 

"Can you stop muttering like a senile old scrap-heap for five minutes to let him explain?" Elita glared. 

A year ago Megatron would have put someone who had spoken to him in such a manner through a wall head first. But... Elita One was armed. And he was not. He had Rung to thank for confiscating his cannon on the weekdays. 

"-A vote," Optimus continued with a heavy sigh. "By chosen representatives from both factions and Nails-" 

Megatron and Elita scoffed, " _Nails_..." 

Optimus ignored them, "-to determine who best suits the position." 

Megatron clenched his fingers into a fist, "I have four million years experience commanding the vast majority of this planet's war builds-"

"Badly," Starscream muttered. 

"And I haven't?" Elita asked coldly. 

Megatron glared at her over his shoulder, "Your mechs weren't war builds." 

"No," she agreed, "which made it all the more humiliating for you when they outmanoeuvred the imbeciles you commanded at every turn, didn't it?" 

_That_ was the _last straw_.

Megatron flew towards her, knocking Starscream down in the process and causing the seeker to shriek dramatically like a banshee. 

The little fool hadn't been hurt but brawling in the office was _also_ the last straw for _Optimus_. Starscream was picked up off the floor and brushed off while Megatron and Elita were booted out of the building by security forces without ceremony - with a week long ban to keep them at bay. 

"A ban from the building, or Optimus's presence, do you think?" Elita asked him lightly, brushing off her armour as they stood out on the curb together, banished and disgraced. 

Given that she was the cause of the humiliating ejection, Megatron did not deign to answer her. He flashed her one last filthy look before striding away. 

The idea that she could oversee an entire planetary military better than him was not only ludicrous but insulting. He just needed to find a way to prove so to the mechs Optimus planned to give the vote to. 

Or better yet, pick the voting candidates himself. 

* * *

  
Megatron had known that his circle of influence was likely to shrink after the war -once Decepticons realised there could be more to life than hating Autobots and shooting at things. It was a given. But he had always assumed that though they might no longer have need of his leadership, they would still retain some loyalty to him, some appreciation for the purpose he had once given them, even if only at the beginning. 

It had been a year, a short year, and yet every which way he turned there were Decepticons behaving in completely abnormal, unbefitting ways - doing things like getting conjunxed and developing hobbies and even in some extreme cases, becoming parents. 

The idea that mechs who had dedicated the majority (and in some cases the entirety) of their adult lives to fighting could simply decide to make something else of their post-war life, like the weight of the last four million years meant nothing to them, flabbergasted Megatron. 

He said so to Rung, and the psychiatrist's eyebrows lifted so high up his head they nearly took off into the stratosphere. 

"Do you not have any aspirations for your new life?" Rung had asked. 

Obviously, yes he did - to become the Supreme General of the planetary military and reinstate some semblance of normality to his life. Rung hadn't been satisfied with that answer and Megatron had had to sit through an additional half hour of suggested hobbies he could how take up with all his free time. Poetry, art, _gardening_ -

The suggestions grew increasingly insulting as they went on. 

"I suppose I could take up pit-fighting again," Megatron had pondered. It was the only thing that still appealed. 

Rung smiled awkwardly at that. 

But with the Pits still closed, with no sign of them reopening any time soon with 'Overlord Prime' in charge, there was no hope of him doing that. 

He simply had to focus on his potential election campaign, if Elita One really insisted on challenging him for the position. 

It would be a feat greater than he had initially assumed with so many of his once dedicated followers now too busy being domestic to assist him with any underhanded machinations that might have helped him sway voting favour in his direction: bribing, blackmail, the standard stuff. 

He had tried to approach Soundwave but found the mech was off-planet. His second choice was Shockwave, who was also coincidentally off-planet - or not so coincidentally, seeing as they were together. His third choice would have been Starscream, but it was clear that seeker had thrown his lot in with Prime and was a lost cause to him. 

Primus, he thought to himself, sat alone in a bar on the lower levels of Iacon, rubbing his face, if it did come to a vote he might have to do it fair and square. 

"What are you drinking?" 

Megatron looked up at wall of pink armour. His mood sunk lower than the standards of the low-level bar they were in when his optics continued up and up until they met with narrowed blue slits of light. Elita towered over his table, a tube-shaped glass of fuel in each hand. 

Megatron wasn't drunk enough to cause a scene, but nor was he sober enough to be sensible and send her away. He tipped his cube towards himself, glancing at it's contents. "It's engex."

"Just engex?" she murmured. "How adventurous." 

"I don't need to set my fuel on fire or dust it with glitter to enjoy it." 

Elita set one of the tubes down in front of him with a sharp _clack_ and swung a large leg over the seat to sit across from him. Megatron studied the fuel- it was a darker shade of energon than her armour, and likely packed with charge. 

"You've poisoned it," he decided. 

Elita paused with her glass before her lips, "Do I look that much like Starscream?" She glanced at her armour with a frown. "I hope not-"

"He sent you then," Megatron sat up and looked around the room, searching for him. 

"You certainly have a high opinion of that seeker if you think _he_ can send _me_ anywhere," Elita warned him dangerously, taking a little sip. "Not even Optimus has that power. And if you don't drink that, I'll have it back. It's probably too strong for you anyway." 

Megatron snorted and snatched up the drink. It could be poison, but he'd rather spend the evening hunched over a drain in the wash-racks, purging his internals out, than sit there and let Elita One insult him. He downed it in one. 

He wasn't used to flavoured drinks, preferring to stick with pure engex to better taste the charge. His tongue felt fuzzy with the mercury flavouring and the reward centre of his processor pinged happily, wanting him to get another. 

Then the charge hit. 

"Strong, isn't it," Elita smiled behind the rim of her drink, sipping hers slowly. Pacing herself. 

Megatron cursed his own stupidity. He'd become so wary of poison he'd forgotten engex could be used for other nefarious purposes. 

"What do you want?" He demanded loudly, slamming his elbow on the table to point at her, "For me to withdraw my name from the running? This is _my_ position. _I_ earned it." 

Elita rolled her optics, "Oh _how_ did you earn it? By killing thousands of Autobots?"

"Because you're a saint, aren't you?" Megatron glared. " _You've_ never killed _anyone_."

Elita tossed back the rest of her drink and slammed the glass upside-down on the table between them, "You're rearing for a fight, aren't you?" 

Megatron felt excess charge surging to his limbs. He rolled his shoulders and ignored the odd lightness of his right arm when where his fusion cannon would have been. Had he worn that he could have simply shot Elita's legs off and walked away. 

"If you're offering." 

"I'm not," she said simply, and smiled. And Megatron experienced a whiplash of emotion, the drive to fight vanishing in a flash when her expression shifted from provoking to charming. "But if you really want to challenge me-"

"I am not drinking any more of your toxic pink swill," Megatron growled, fearing a drinking game. 

"Good," Elita swung her arm atop the table, slamming her elbow onto it and holding her forearm aloft, palm open. "Because I was thinking: arm-wrestle." 

It wasn't a violent brawl across the table, but it would do. Megatron lifted his own arm, keen to burn off the charge of that drink. 

"Shall we make this more interesting?" Elita flexed her fingers as Megatron went to clasp his hand in hers. "Who needs a vote when we can decide between ourselves which of us will be the better General?" 

Megatron squeezed his much larger hand around hers, and smirked. "You want to wager the position over an arm-wrestle?"

It couldn't be this easy, could it?

"Well, a campaign means debates, and I'd rather not have to debate you, Megatron," she answered honestly, sounding almost complimentary. "Starscream jokes that you've lost your touch, but you're still the great orator, the poet-"

"Starscream said what?!" Megatron demanded, clenching his hand around hers. 

"-but this," she continued, nodding to their joined hands. "I know I can win." 

Megatron managed to get past the mention of Starscream and compute what she'd said. "You're not wrong about my ability to out debate you, but to proclaim yourself stronger than I-?"

There was no warning for the start of the match. 

Elita gripped his hand with surprising strength and began to push against it. Megatron hurriedly straightened up and held his position. She began to increase the pressure. Megatron found himself having to actually _try_. He frowned. Her frame packed more of a punch than he had realised. 

"Aren't I?" She teased, her laugh breathless. And the pressure increased still. Megatron's arm began to shake with the strain. 

"Go on then," she smirked, her arm holding steady, rigid in place. "Pin me." 

Megatron grit his denta and dipped into his reserve power. There was a moment where he thought he had an advantage, but it appeared she was playing with him. She pushed back, the panels of her armour locking tight as she clenched every gear. To Megatron's horror, she began to win, pushing his arm down, notch by notch. 

Megatron hissed a curse and rerouted all available power to his right arm.

"You're getting old, Megatron," she growled, and Megatron heard metal begin to groan, hers or his, he couldn't tell. 

Her teeth shone behind her smirk, her optics alight with electric blue fire. He could see the reflection of his own strained expression in her faceplate, fierce and desperate. His chair scrapped the floor as he shifted his weight, but he was losing, he was going to lose. 

"Retirement's weakened you," she goaded him. 

His joints began to ache. HUD warnings popped up to tell him to stop before he lost his arm completely. He made one last desperate push, roaring with the effort. Elita grunted, and with one last shove of her own arm, slammed the back of his hand against the table, knocking over their glasses with the force of the pin. 

Megatron stared at his arm. 

Now no longer a part of his frame. Popped clean out of it's socket. 

Elita's mouth curled into a guilty smirk. Megatron's dismembered hand was still locked around her own. She lifted them both with a grimace. "You really are falling apart..." 

* * *

  
Megatron sat on the medical slab, bored, his left hand propping up his chin and his face set into a deep frown. Across from him, with his arm slung over her shoulder, sat Elita, pulling faces as she scrolled through a data-pad. 

"What are you reading?" He snapped, his boredom reaching intolerable levels. 

Her blue optics lifted slowly, "A magazine." Her long tapered finger swept over the screen elegantly. 

"There's no need for you to be here." 

"Someone needed to bring your arm." She dropped her gaze to the data-pad. "You're welcome, by the way. This is definitely how I wanted to spend my evening." 

Megatron's optic twitched, "And you think this was my first choice? Having my arm ripped up off by a _deranged_ -"

"I didn't rip it off," she said impatiently. "It fell off-"

"Arms don't just fall off!" 

"Yours did." 

Megatron opened his mouth to shout again, but caught sight of Elita's raised brow. He snapped it with a clack, irritated with himself at how easily she could rile him up. There were a great many mecha that that had the ability to irritate him (Starscream, chiefly) but none of them had the capacity to remain completely detached from the ensuing argument as Elita did. It made him look like a lunatic, raging and cursing at someone who was perfectly calm and civilised. Like a youngling having a tantrum at their saintly and unshakeably patient parent. 

He hated her.

"Typical Autobot," He recollected himself and sneered. "Blaming me for your own wrongdoing-"

"I warned you," Elita poked at her data-pad and used her other hand to stroke at his detached arm like it was a pet. "And it's hardly my fault you don't oil your old joints often enough." 

Megatron might have argued that he oiled his joints a perfectly regular amount -though he couldn't recall the last time he had done so at just that moment. He thankfully didn't have to defend himself further, as the building tension in the room was finally interrupted.

Not, sadly, by a medic. But by Optimus Prime. 

"Megatron?!" He came striding in, in full overbearingly Primely fashion. "Are you alright? How did this happen? You haven't been brawling again, have you?" 

"No I have not," Megatron snarled, gesturing vehemently in the direction of the culprit with his one arm. "Your harbinger of death is to blame for this injury." 

Optimus turned to where Elita was sat smiling against the wall. She lifted Megatron's arm and used it to wave at him. "Hello." 

"Oh," Optimus murmured, with a note of deep understanding. "I see. Hello Elita." 

"How did you know I was here?" Megatron demanded, optics flashing at Elita. "Did you bring him here to laugh at my predicament? It wasn't enough to assault me, you had to humiliate me as well?" 

Elita rolled her optics at his accusations, but Optimus was already shaking his head. 

"No, I hadn't even realised Elita was here. We were called by your medics-"

Megatron's optics flashed, "We?" 

"Well, Starscream was." Optimus's optics darted from side-to-side. "He's your emergency contact." 

"Where is he now?" Megatron snarled, trying to look around Optimus's bulk. 

"Getting himself _removed_ as your emergency contact," Optimus explained regrettably. "I felt someone should be here for you. Though now I see you already have company-"

" _That_ is not company." Megatron jabbed his finger at Elita. "That is an instrument of torture. You see now why she is unsuitable for the role of-"

"Oh, give it a rest Megatron," Optimus grumbled. "The decision is not mine to make, thank Primus." He gave Elita a condemning look, and Megatron was glad to finally see her receive some criticisms. "Tell me you didn't goad him into another fight?"

"His arm fell off," she lied. 

"It was ripped off!" 

"An arm wrestle gone wrong," Elita said softly, shrugging. "I don't know my own strength." 

"I would ask who won," Optimus began, lifting a finger to nudge sat Megatron's detached arm resting over Elita's shoulder. "But I think the situation speaks for itself..." 

"Which leads me to my next point," Elita smiled predatorily, blue optics wickedly bright. "Seeing as I won our wager, I believe Megatron is now duty bound to inform you that he'll be pulling himself out of the running for Supreme General-"

"Not on your _life_ ," Megatron snarled. "No one won that wager because I was unjustly mauled." 

Optimus sighed, "Your arm will _pop back in_ , Megatron, you were hardly mauled." 

"Must you always take her side?" 

"It's far more entertaining than taking yours." 

"Boys," Elita held up Megatron's arm to draw their attention. "It's fine. He wants a rematch, I'll give him a rematch." 

"So he can lose the other arm?" Optimus guessed. 

"No, not an arm wrestle, this time a real fight. In the Pit, were it belongs." 

Megatron's interest piqued. Yes. This would work in his favour. He had never fought Elita One in one-on-one combat, nevertheless in a pit-fight, but he had been undefeated in his day. She was a firearms specialist, and guns had no place in the arena. She wouldn't stand a chance. The office of the Supreme General would be as good as his. 

"Agreed." He purred, holding out his good hand for her to shake. She clasped it and shook it once. 

"I'd suggest you oil your joints this time," Elita advised, swinging Megatron's arm off her shoulder and tossing it at Optimus, thunking him in the chest with it. "Get back to me on a time and date and we'll make a show of it. You can invite all your little Decepticon friends. Or what remains of them." 

Megatron watched her saunter out of the room, feeling increasingly confident the more he thought about it. Next to him Optimus didn't look so sure. 

"You don't want to make this a public fight, do you?" 

Megatron snorted and yanked his arm off him, "Of course I do. Nothing would give me more satisfaction than to humiliate her in front of the gathered masses." 

Beneath the mask, Optimus groaned wearily. 

* * *

  
For months the temporary council of New-Iacon had been putting off his attempts to have the arenas re-opened. It was _uncivilised_ they said, a mark of the old world they didn't want to revisit. Not without huge reforms at the very least and hundreds of revised safety and conduct protocols. "You of all people should understand that" - they told him. 

But as soon as _Elita One_ had mentioned organising a grand reopening of the Iaconian Arena around a show-stopping match between herself and the reigning champion of Kaon, they'd all but _thrown_ the doors open.

The stalls were packed, the lights shone high and bright, and venders were clogging the streets outside with snacks, beverages, and the marketing debris they called 'merchandise'. Megatron had never seen such a spectacle, not even when the gladiatorial fights had been at the height of their popularity. Not even when he had staged the largest of his rallies, right before the Autobot Security Forces had started to make a conscious effort to shut him down. 

He could see there had initially been some effort made to separate the (former) factions, with stalls marked with red and purple banners. But it had been a full year, and it seemed his and Optimus's followers weren't as fond of holding grudges as their leaders clearly had been. Friends had been made across the divide and as he observed the ring from the tunnel entrance in the moments before he was due to prepare himself, he could see Autobots and Decepticons sitting side by side, sharing their drinks and snacks as they waited for the event to start. 

He was drawn from wistful imaginings of a time in the future where _he_ might be able to spend a carefree evening with friends -and if he ever had before- when a evil cackle brought him back down to Cybertron with a slam. 

His optics rolled into the back of his skull as strut deep exhaustion set in. 

"Starscream," he grunted, regretfully turning around to face the fiend. "What a surprise." 

The seeker was indeed approaching him -the laugh was unmistakable. He was holding an iced-engino in one clawed hand, while the other was incased in a novelty foam finger with the words ' _Till All Are Scrapped!_ ' printed across it. Surprisingly, Optimus Prime was with him.

Megatron didn't want to think about the implications of that, despite how hard the world was forcing him to put two and two together. 

"Nice hand," he huffed at Starscream. "Are you here to root for me?" 

Starscream sucked on the straw of his iced drink loudly before answering, "Stars no. It'll be the highlight of my year when she knocks you on your aft." 

"I'm not rooting for anyone in particular," Optimus felt the need to add. "I'm merely here to wish you luck. May the best mech win."

"Which, from what Optimus has told me, will be Elita," Starscream smiled around his straw. 

"Without a gun, she's useless," Megatron snorted. 

Starscream went to laugh, but his timing was appalling and he seemed to inhale his drink through the straw instead. He started to choke on it, bent over, clutching his knees as he coughed. Optimus patted his back. "Megatron, I feel I ought to warn you-"

"I'm not interested in listening to your mind games," Megatron shooed them angrily. "You'll be in the box, I presume?" 

Starscream was still hacking up his air vents when Optimus nodded. 

"Good, I wouldn't want you to miss anything," he smirked. "I would save your luck for the mech who'll need it, Prime." 

Despite his asphyxiated state, Starscream started to giggle between coughs. 

"Nevertheless, good luck to you Megatron," Optimus said kindly. "...I hope you fare better than I ever did against her." 

Megatron nodded in satisfaction, watching them go. It was only when they were already disappearing up the stairs to reach their box that Optimus's words hit home. 

"Wait," a long since forgotten sense of apprehension crept up on Megatron. "Better than you ever-?"

Oh, slag. 

* * *

They had been trying to faze him, that was all. Megatron told himself when he stretched out his limbs and swung his flail, testing it's reach and weight. It would have been one of Starscream's little manipulations. It was a worry that he could influence Optimus already, who inadvisably seemed to have chosen the seeker as some sort of council- 

At least he hoped that's all it was. Optimus with Starscream was a terrifying prospect to behold. If it was a genuine alliance it didn't bear thinking about. 

But he would worry for tomorrow's problem once he had dealt with today's. 

Elita One was across from him, and the once wide open pit seemed to shrink before him in her magnetic presence. She held up her broad sword, turning the blade over in her hand and touching her finger to the sharp tip. Her optics focused past it and met Megatron's gaze. Her smile was sharper than the weapon. 

Megatron steeled himself, flexing his hand around the grip of the flail. One swing and he could take her head off. That's all he needed. 

Matches in Iacon were somewhat more civilised than their Kaonite counterparts, where the gates would be flung open and opponents would fly at each other the second they had the chance. Iacon abided by long held traditions and expected a show of pomp and circumstance. 

Megatron supposed he could tolerate the unnecessary ceremony of it all, seeing as this wouldn't be a fight to the death. At least, _he_ had no intention of making it one. 

Elita One was unreadable, her visage cold and aloof, every bit the warrior that had once had his mechs running back across the field to him, squealing in terror. 

They met in the middle for the pit and shook hands. She managed to restrain herself from _ripping his arm off_ this time, but her grip was strong and sure despite the slightness of her fingers. They shook once, the crowd cheered sedately, and without a word they retreated back to their corners. 

The lighting in the arena changed, dimming to just the emergency exit signs. The crowd became hushed with anticipation. It was so quiet Megatron could have sworn he could hear Starscream somewhere in the crowd, sucking on that damn straw again- 

The lights flashed on and the roar of the crowd was deafening. Megatron's optics barely readjusted to the spotlights when a streak of pink came flying at him, sword drawn back. His tact-net activated with a equilibrium shifting flash, and his arm came up almost on it's own accord. 

He swung his flail and Elita dropped right before him, ducking beneath the swing of the weapon. Only Megatron's optics were quick enough to follow her down. She landed on her thigh and rolled behind him, kicking up the grit covering the arena floor into a great dust cloud. 

He saw the glint of the sword blade through the dust as she thrust upwards, surging back to her feet. He veered back but the blade sliced through his cheek, stinging. He hissed and swung blindly. Elita ducked again and instead of using her sword, elbowed him in the side, knocking air from his vents. 

He stumbled back with a grunt, righting himself as his flail imbedded itself in the ground behind him. He yanked it back up with a snarl but she had already retreated out of his reach, bouncing on the toes of her pedes. Her pink armour was untouched save for the smears of dust up her legs. Her lips curled up at the edges. She was enjoying herself. 

Warmth burned through Megatron's chest as he glanced at the cheering crowds surrounding them. He could hear them chant. His name. Her name. It was a thundering noise, the stamping of pedes and banging of fists drumming all around him. 

But none of it matched the roar of his own ventilations, huffing in and out, already out of breath. Elita twirled her sword playfully, her fingers flexing around the grip. 

She extended her sword-arm straight out in front of her, the tip glinting in the lights. With her other hand she beckoned him with two curled fingers. 

Megatron snarled and ran at her again. 

He swung his flail at her head and she near bent herself in half backwards to duck it. Her back strut adjusted with a _whir_ as her top half shot upright again. She swung her sword with a grunt and Megatron blocked with his forearms crossed over each other. The blade screeched against his vambrace armour but it was too thick to penetrate. She pushed, her denta gritted with the strain. Megatron heels dug into the dirt as he skidded backwards. 

It was incredible, her strength, as she stepped forward and pushed him back further still. Megatron could no longer hear the crowd at all, only her breaths, measured and deep through her parted lips. He was close enough that he could smell her polish, the earthiness of dirt up her legs, the oil in her joints. 

He stumbled and her sword glanced off his forearm. She could have beheaded him then and there, but instead she bounced back. To give him another chance. Or to play with him. 

Megatron brushed a trickle of energon away from his cheek with the back of his hand, and tossed his flail to the side in frustration. Elita was a brilliant swords-mech. If he was to best her he had a better chance in hand-to-hand combat. It was simply a matter of her being prideful enough to take the bait.

"Well?" He lifted his fists and shifted into a boxing stance. 

She was as proud and stubborn as he was. She wouldn't be able to resist. 

She looked between his discarded weapon and him with a raised brow, as if to say 'really?'

"A true warrior needs nothing but his bare hands," he called across to her. 

That did it. She tossed her sword aside with a _clang_. "Your funeral," she smiled, and cracked her knuckles. 

What followed was a flurry of clanging punches and pained grunts. She nailed him with an undercut that had him biting his own tongue. He lashed out. His knuckles glanced off her chest plating as she twisted aside. She was intolerably flexible - it was like boxing a seeker with the strength of a Phase Sixer. 

He spat energon to the side and shook the distortion from his processor. With a shout of anger he dove at her. She span on one foot and had a kick ready for him, her heel ramming into his gut. His tanks rolled with the sudden onslaught of nausea and he dropped to a knee. 

He fought through it, coming up swinging. She caught his fists and squeezed them in her own, pushing him back down to his knees. Megatron looked up through glistening optics. She stared down at him coldly, and with one last punch to the side of the helm, knocked him flat on his back, limbs splayed. 

The crowd was a dull roar in the background, as muffled and distant as the audio from four million year old memory files. Megatron's vision was filled with bright spots of colour and shifting blobs of light. The ringing in his helm couldn't blot out the clear shouts of Elita's name.

Eventually he managed to lift his helm. Elita towered over him like a pink goddess, her knuckles brightened with his energon. Rather than bask in the attention of her fans, her attention was fixed on him. She moved to step directly over him, and slowly, she crouched over his chest. 

Megatron's helm flopped back flat on the ground as her hand reached for him, her fingers cupping his cheek. Her touch was gentle but firm when her warm thumb slid over his bottom lip, smearing energon from the corner of his mouth. "My colour looks good on you." 

Megatron snarled weakly, ventilations panting as his processor failed to reboot his weakened limbs. His equilibrium was still shot, and were it not for his optics he wouldn't have known which way was up. 

Elita reached around the back of his head and gripped the edge of his helmet. Megatron groaned resentfully as she flicked the latches and began to lift it away, exposing his delicate sensory panels to the elements. They began to unfurl and come forwards, framing his face in black and gold. She was thankfully gentle, and when she tucked the helmet under her arm, she paused to brush an appreciative finger over the tip of a panel. Megatron's optics dimmed at the unexpectedly pleasant sensation. 

And she smiled at him. 

Entire frame aching and battered, Megatron spark thunked loudly in it's casing. 

Elita rose with the helmet and lifted it above her head in victory. And the crowd in the stands went wild. 

Unable to calm his panting vents or drumming spark, Megatron shuttered his optics in defeat. 

* * *

  
The crowd's cheering lingered with Megatron. Sat beneath the arena pit, the audio files of the moment replayed in his processor again and again. In the deepest depths of his spark, a sense of humiliation wanted to rise up and envelope him. But when he shuttered his optics and lost himself to the memories, he saw Elita crouching over him, strong and victorious, her fingers ghosting along the length of his sensory panels with something like reverence. 

He wiped his aching face with a cloth, clearing away the energon smeared across his cheek. He could still taste it on his damaged tongue. When he rubbed his dented jaw he found the good humour to smirk. 

He hasn't been thrown about that thoroughly since he'd been a rookie. 

The door into the weaponry room he had absconded to rolled open on it's manual track, knocking loudly against the wall. Megatron turned -slowly, carefully, his back aching- and had to hurriedly arrange his expression into something resentful when Elita One filled the open doorway with neon pink and a charming smirk. 

"Haven't you done enough?" He growled. 

Undeterred, she brought her hand out from behind her back. Balancing off the end of her pinky was his helmet. "I came to return this." 

"How generous of you." 

She crossed the cramped weapons room and came to stand before him, her hips level with his optics. He grumpily looked away and reached to take his helmet back, but she lifted it out of reach. 

He scowled up at her. 

She smirked down at him. 

He ignored the warm pulse his spark pushed through his frame. 

"Allow me," she purred, and lifted it to his head. Rolling his optics, Megatron bowed his helm, seeing little point in resisting. 

Then, instead of a helmet falling back into place over his sensory crown, he found his lap weighed down by a pair of pink thighs. He blinked and stiffened, suddenly unable to think of what to do with his hands. She was a trim and narrow build, but as heavy as any warrior packing her armoury. And warm too. 

His optics where round and his mouth had gone dry, and she must have sensed his shock. She didn't react to it, leaning up and carefully wriggling the helmet down over his head. "I think I prefer you without it," she murmured, as she turned it roughly to make sure it was on straight, then tipped his face up with a hand under his chin. 

Looking up into her face Megatron swallowed thickly, feeling the drag of her fine finger tips under his chin. The chin knuckles of _steel_ had pummelled just moments ago in the Pit. 

Her hands moved up to his cheeks, framing them appreciatively, her blue optics shifting from feature to feature on his face, taking in his dents and imperfections. Megatron hands found her hips, the armour gritty under his finger pads were she had scraped it in the dirt. 

Megatron's fuel pump was a dull roar in buzz audials. He could feel his spark pulse in his own fingertips. 

She leaned in and her nose nudged his own. His lips parted, the bottom one still fat and swollen from their fight, and she closed the distance with a gentle kiss, mindful of that damage, her thumb moving back and forth over the arch of his cheek. 

The warmth in his chest began to trickle down and collect in a space between his hips, activating sensors and onlining his array. Every tiny, shifting press of her smooth shapely lips hardened him, softened him, until he shifted under her with a groan.

And that was the last of their gentleness. 

Elita pushed him down, shoving him onto his back across the weapons bench, knocking daggers and chains to the floor. She leant over him and pinned his hands either side of his helm, her hips rolling sinuously against his, sending a pulsing of pleasure through his tanks. His legs kicked out against the floor and his engine turned over. 

She bit his lip lightly, and when he tried to lift a hand to her helm she held fast, slamming his forearms against the bench with a clunk. 

His spike was hard beneath the panel she was grinding over. Her valve panel folded away with a _hiss_ and _click_ and the second Megatron's spike registered the charge and proximity of her array it pushed through it's housing. His codpiece came apart to free it and Elita released his hands to sit up. 

She rose up on her knees, her frame a pillar of engineered power. She kept him pinned him with just a stare. Stunned into obedience, Megatron remained flat on his back, watching attentively as she lined them up and began sank down onto him. 

He groaned at the slick ease with which she took him, his spike breaching the rim and sinking into the depths of lush mesh and clenching callipers. He grabbed for her hips and she clasped her hands over his, dragging them slowly up her frame as she moved, her optics hooded but intense as she showed him where to touch. 

"You're not completely obsolete," she purred, sounding utterly unfazed. 

Megatron swallowed, spark frantic and mind spinning. 

She teeth shone between her lips, "God, if I'd know _this_ was how to shut you up..." 

She stopped and leaned over him again, grabbing his helmet and yanking it off before Megatron could think to even turn his head to stop her. His exposed sensory panels rose into their crown, tingling with charge and begging to be touched. He bit his lip and groaned when just the barest brush sent a shock of pressure surging through his frame, adding to the pressure at the base of his spike, cresting it.

A gasp burst past his lips and his back bowed off the bench as he overloaded into her, yanking her down onto his spike to bury himself deep. 

He was still reeling from the overload when Elita climbed off him, dismissing any need for his refractory period. 

She grabbed his hips and turned him into his front. It didn't even come to his mind not to obey when she urged him onto his hands and knees. His valve was tingling and wet between his legs and all Elita had to do was tap a claw to the panel and he was baring himself to her. He dropped his helm to the bench when her fingers dipped into him and circled his rim. She spread him apart, stroked him, rubbed his node, until he was moaning aloud in the weapons rooms, loud enough that any passersby would have heard. 

She lifted a knee to the bench and climbed up behind him. He heard her pressurise behind him with a swift _psst_ of stiffening metal. Her spike was hot and felt curved towards the tip as she nudged the rim of his valve, just teasing him. He rocked back on his knees to grind some friction out of it, his valve clenching and drooling lubricant. 

Her hands ran up the centre of his back, fingers dancing along his neck cabling. He leaned into the touch, purring like a cat - when a fist grabbed ahold of his sensory panels and _tugged_. 

His optics blew online with a shout as she timed the pleasurable yank with the sudden jab of her spike into his valve. Instinct made him pull away, but she used her grip on his sensory panels to haul him back, and hilted him in one ferocious yank. 

"Yes!" He bellowed, his jaw dropping open when she loosened her grip and pulled half-way out, then tightened it again and yanked him back. 

She began to frag him, fast and mean. Every slam of her spike into his valve was incomparable when paired with the rough handling of his sensory crown. He couldn't see straight. He became undone beneath her, staring across at the blank wall with unfocused optics and she tugged his helm back further, pulling his neck cabling taunt, forcing him frame into a arch. 

She squeezed his sensory panel and held deep inside him, circling her hips, and with a shuddering moan Megatron overloaded a second time, pushing back onto her spike, his valve dripping streams of lubricant down his thighs to puddle on the bench around his knees. 

Elita purred her approval and Megatron felt her twitch inside him as her thrusts fell out of pace. She bucked into him three more times, the slide of her spike through his valve wet and lewd, before she hissed and cursed and overloaded. She clenched her fingers around his sensor crown in time with the warm pulses of her spike. Megatron withered beneath her, crown still caught in her fingers. 

Gradually, he felt her start to relax, and with a breath of gratitude her fingers loosened from his helm. He let his head fall forward and dropped his forehead to the bench between his forearms. Behind him she slid out of his valve, and without her to hold him up his knees gave out. He fell to the bench in a heap with a dull _thud_.

It took some time, but eventually he found the strength to turn his helm. Next to him Elita had sat back on her aft, out of breath, her pale cheeks flushed, and her softening spike resting against her hip.

"Where's the helmet?" Megatron asked, his voice soft and croaky from the embarrassing amount of noise he must have been making. 

Elita glanced around and then appeared to give up, shrugging, "Primus knows." 

Megatron rolled onto his back with a groan. Any part of his framework that had been spared damage in their match had been throughly ravaged during their 'facing. A warm feeling of satisfaction filled him though. The darkness lingering in the back of his mind had been swept away. He was exhausted, but it was a good exhaustion. He felt freed. 

"I haven't had a fight like that in years," Elita began casually -too casually frankly- as she scooted towards him on her aft. "I'm still looking for a first lieutenant. If you're interested..."

Megatron's brow creased. His processor was still sluggish and full of primitive pleasure protocols. "You want me to be your Second in Command?" He eventually deciphered. 

"We'd make a formidable team, wouldn't we?" Elita's smirk was wicked. "Unless you've some objection to the idea of serving ...under me?" 

Megatron optics -and mind- wandered to her spike again. It was half-hard and twitching under his scrutiny. The warm tingle began to grow between his hips again. He found himself smirking back.

"I think we've already established that I am more than content with the idea of being _under_ you." 

Elita gripped her spike and stroked it once, promisingly, "Come over here and prove it." 

And Megatron did. Many times over. 


End file.
